Spring has finally sprung and you're ready to book that getaway you've been dreaming about since the

Spring has finally sprung and you’re ready to book that getaway you’ve been dreaming about since the dark days of winter. But with so many options for planning and booking your trip, sifting through the horde of travel sites that promise discounted rates can be daunting.
Below is an unbiased rundown of some popular travel sites along with a few lesser known contenders, and tips on ensuring that your dollar travels as far as your imagination. ata airline tickets Hover over each category to find out more!
The biggest player in the online travel biz, Expedia Inc. owns more than 20 popular booking and travel information sites, including Hotwire and Hotels.com. The main Expedia site allows users to search, compare, and book a comprehensive selection of hotels, flights, cruises, cars, activities, and vacation packages.
No cancellation fees, but some flights within vacation packages may incur a charge, and individual airlines may charge for cancelling or rebooking. Also, you need to pay the price difference if rebooking a trip for which the original price is no longer available. ata airline tickets All fees on Expedia are disclosed upfront (albeit in fine print), but the taxes and fees portion of vacation packages is not itemized, so you won t know exactly what this number entails.
The good news: Unlike many online-only travel sites, there is a phone number for Expedia by which you can reach a human. The bad news: The humans on the line tend to be less than helpful and often will force you to spend a ton of time on the phone transfering between staffers and supervisors recounting your situation over and over.
An excellent, exhaustive resource for booking discounted ata airline tickets travel, in the U.S. and Europe particularly. Just beware the add-ons that are offered at the end of your booking (car rentals, activities, insurance, etc.).
Newer player in the flight search game; it combines a refreshingly simple interface with a unique Agony feature in which your results are ranked in order of the agony you ll incur during the flight taking into account price, duration, and number of stops.
This Europe-based cheap ticket search engine is one of the most flexible, allowing users to search over 900 airlines for flights in a single month or over the course of a year in more than 25 languages.
None, since it s not a booking site (which means no results are given preference). When a user finds a suitable trip, he/she is directed to purchase it directly from the site on which it is advertised.
Our favorite! They have a comprehensive and unbiased database, and there s no agenda as to which search results populate first. Plus, it has great creative filters like no prop planes (if you don t want a puddle-jumper).
Before you book a flight, hotel room, or vacation package, check the price on each of the individual vendor’s sites. Oftentimes, cutting out the middle man and booking separately is cheaper than buying a package on sites like Expedia or Orbitz. Furthermore, buying directly from the airline gives you more flexibility to manage your flights, and calling the hotel can result in unadvertised savings (especially ata airline tickets during low season and if you are celebrating a special occasion). Remember, third party sites require full payment up front, so do your homework before plunking down the plastic.
Bonus tip : Our favorite site for hotel deals in Europe is  Venere.com , which has an incredibly easy user experience, a vast Rolodex of hotels (including smaller boutique properties that you d never find on many U.S.-based sites), and lots of great deals and discounts. We didn t include it in the chart above because its forte is hotels rather than flights, but we ve booked many European stays through Venere and have never been disappointed.
Sometimes you won t find your favorite or most convenient airlines on these sites. Southwest Airlines doesn t list its flights with any third party vendors. When in doubt, search your itinerary directly with airlines to ensure ata airline tickets that you don’t miss a cheap rate.
Don’t book a cruise on any of these consolidation sites. A travel agent specializing in cruises is always the better option because they have relationships with cruise lines, which means discounted rates; and they can score you deals on the cruise ship and with shore excursions.
But most importantly, there are a lot of moving parts on a cruise trip (flight, transfer to ship, the cruise itself, etc.) and if one part goes awry, an experienced travel agent can use his or her connections to fix it. Meanwhile, if you d booked your cruise via an aggregation site, you d be stuck doing phone battle without a life preserver (see Customer Service in the chart above).
Beware of hotels or airlines labeled “top picks” in your search results. These aren’t necessarily of a higher quality or better value. Instead, they are often a business partner of the booking site, and therefore get populated at the top of your search.
Beata Santora ata airline tickets is an Associate Editor at Condé Nast Traveler . She was bitten by the travel bug at age 3 while on a cruise of the Black Sea, and now she loves airports and hotels the way most people love chocolate.
LearnVest Planning Services is a registered investment adviser and subsidiary of LearnVest, Inc. that provides financial plans for its clients. Information shown is for illustrative purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Please consult a financial adviser for advice specific to your financial situation. LearnVest Planning Services and any third-parties listed, discussed, ata airline tickets identified or otherwise appearing herein are separate ata airline tickets and unaffiliated and are not responsible for each other’s products, services or policies.